Twenty-Seven
D inner is tense, though I’m not sure if the others can feel it the way I can. The way Krystal and Isaac can, too, judging by the way they make a concerted effort to avoid eye contact despite being seated straight across from each other. I’m not being a very good hostess either. I’m still rattled by everything Isaac told me, turning over this new piece of information in my head.
She left him at the altar, and she didn’t tell me.
Marcela picks up the slack, handing out plates of chicken and pasta and asking what everyone wants to drink. Once everyone has their drinks, we lock eyes across the dining room and she mouths, You okay? I’m not sure how much she’s pieced together, but she must sense something wrong. I shake my head, mouth, Later , and take my seat next to Krystal.
She hasn’t said a word to me since her ex arrived with my cousin. I should’ve checked up on her sooner, and I would’ve if Isaac hadn’t thrown that curveball at me. If he hadn’t made me reevaluate everything I thought I knew about this woman.
“So, how do you two know each other?” Esme motions a hand between Krystal and me. The question is innocuous enough, but there’s an edge to my cousin’s tone that wasn’t there when we greeted each other in the foyer. There’s no way she doesn’t know who Krystal is. Isaac had to have filled her in as the table was being set, if not long before they entered this house. Esme’s gaze flits to the other woman and stays there, assessing with a calculating eye.
“We met at the bar where she works,” I answer, squeezing Krystal’s knee beneath the table. I try to give her an encouraging look, but her eyes stay trained on her plate. “But we only started hanging out recently.”
“Are you guys seeing each other?” Briana asks on Esme’s other side, seemingly oblivious to the elephant in the room. She’s a bit harder to read, occupied with cutting into the chicken. “You never updated TikTok on the scavenger hunt. Is that over?”
I blink at my cousin for a moment, stunned. “You… you watch my videos?” I could’ve sworn I blocked her and Esme after the group chat fiasco.
“I watch on Diego’s phone when he’s cleaning,” she answers, spearing her fork into a penne. Dammit. I forgot about her husband. “I still can’t believe you blocked me. Was that really necessary?”
“My page is meant to be a safe space.” I sink into my chair, wishing we could drop this conversation. Or that I could suddenly become invisible. One of the two. It was naive of me to believe she wouldn’t bring up the conversation I’ve been avoiding for weeks at the table in front of six other pairs of eyes, but that’s my cousin for you—steamrolling right over anyone in her path. “I didn’t just block you and Esme. I blocked plenty of people from high school and homophobic family members.”
“Esme and I aren’t homophobic,” Briana says before squaring her eyes on our cousin. “Are we, Julian?”
“Leave him out of this,” I say, giving Julian enough time to stuff his face to avoid having to speak. “This isn’t about him. It’s about me.”
“Then why have you been ignoring me?” Briana’s silverware clatters onto her plate with a loud crash. “Because I’m not ‘safe’? Whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean.”
“You’re the reason she needs a safe space to talk about what she’s built her platform on,” Krystal interjects. I blink over at her in surprise. Moments before, I thought she was shutting down on me. That coming face-to-face with Isaac was too much for her. Turns out I was wrong, because she’s all fired up now on my behalf. “God knows you and your sister bullied her enough times for it in high school. Why are you so surprised she doesn’t trust you?”
“Oh, come on. You can hardly call what we did bullying,” Esme retorts. “We only teased her a little bit. It was harmless. She knew we were just joking around.”
“No, I didn’t.” I shake my head. “What was harmless about humiliating me countless times in front of all my friends and family?” I ask her. Them. Both of them. “Or reducing me to tears I fought to hide until I was alone? Or making me feel like a fucking weirdo just because I didn’t want to kiss anyone I went to high school with?”
“You lied to us—”
“Because I had to!” My fist bangs against the surface, rattling the table. “You left me no other choice. All I wanted was for you guys to get off my back. That’s why I lied about having a fling. Not because I thought it’d make you like me more.”
Esme shakes her head, dismissing my outburst with an eye roll that has me seething. “What kind of person makes up a boyfriend?” She looks me up and down like I’m the problem. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“And making fun of her for not having been kissed does?” Krystal’s voice is low, but it thrums with barely contained rage. Her hands form white-knuckled fists beneath the table. “She was a teenager, for god’s sake! Not to mention you giving out her number to every creep she went to high school with. She could’ve been harassed, assaulted, or worse!”
Briana’s face has taken a greenish tinge. She places a hand over her mouth like she’s about to be sick, but Esme remains unaffected, rolling her eyes again.
“Were we really that bad?” Briana’s brows scrunch together. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was… concerned. For the first time, I wonder if their memories are different from mine. If they truly never understood how much they hurt me over the years.
“You were worse.” Krystal looks Briana right in the eye as she says it. “Whatever you’re realizing right now, you were so much worse than you think.”
“You never said anything,” Esme says to me, still skeptical. “If we really hurt you that bad, why didn’t you tell us?”
“You wouldn’t have taken me seriously.” I cross my arms over my chest. “You guys never took anything I said back then seriously. Even my parents dismissed me after a while. I only forgave you so many times because they asked me to. Because family isn’t supposed to hate each other the way I used to hate you two. And maybe I was worried if I told you how much all the teasing hurt me, you’d know how much power you had over me, and the whole situation would only get… worse.”
“Is that really what you thought of us? All this time, even after high school and we became friends?” Briana’s eyes are shining with tears I can’t fathom. “Were we really that cruel to you?”
Julian clears his throat from the end of the table, mouth no longer full. “I remember hiding out with Angela plenty of times around here when the whole family got together. You guys were more brutal than you think.”
“‘Brutal’ is putting it lightly,” Krystal scoffs, looking Briana dead in the face. “You oughta be ashamed of yourself. Growing up and figuring out who you are is hard enough without your own family tearing you down. You attacked her simply because she was different from you. It wasn’t until you thought she was like you that you started treating her like a human being. Don’t you see how fucked up that is?”
“You want to talk about who should be ashamed of who?” Esme rises from her chair, towering over Krystal’s seated form. “Who the hell do you think you are inserting yourself into a conversation that has nothing to do with you? Who even are you, aside from the woman who left my boyfriend at the altar?”
Krystal’s face turns white.
“That’s enough.” I stand up after my cousin, walking around the table until we’re eye to eye and inches apart. “I’m not doing this with you. You’re not going to attack my friends after I welcomed you into my home.”
“It’s your parents’ house,” she scoffs. “They don’t even make you pay rent.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that neither of you were invited.” My arms cross over my chest as I glance between Esme and Briana. “And I won’t allow you to talk to Krystal that way.”
“What about the way she talked to me and Briana?” Esme rages. “We’re your family .”
“Nothing she said was a lie.” I take a step closer. “And after everything you put me through, you can’t convince me you don’t deserve it.”
“What I said wasn’t a lie either,” she huffs. “How can you be friends with someone capable of hurting Isaac the way she did?”
Briana rises from her seat next, quickly followed by Julian, Marcela, and Theo. Julian stops Briana from whatever she’s about to say, lowering his voice to a register I don’t catch. My best friend makes her way around the table until she’s pulling me into the kitchen, away from the commotion of the dinner table.
“Are you okay?” she asks. “Scratch that. Stupid question. What do you want us to do?”
The dining room has devolved into full chaos now, with Esme shouting something over her sister’s shoulder, an accusing finger pointed at Julian’s chest. Not even Isaac can seem to calm her down. She shakes off his hand on her arm like she’s shaking off a gnat. Theo is slowly backing away from the table, eyes skating the room like he’s unsure what to do.
All the while, Krystal is eerily still in her seat, staring down at her full plate as everyone else argues all around her. Even after she hid this huge secret from me, I hate myself for unknowingly putting her in this situation to begin with.
“I have no idea.” I shut my eyes against the scene. “God, this is a mess . I never should’ve avoided Briana and Esme for so long. This never would’ve happened if I faced up to them sooner.”
Speaking of, Briana breaks herself away from the group and stalks toward us. Without a word, she pulls me from the kitchen by the wrist and leads me outside. Marcela tries to stop her, but Briana practically bites her head off with a look. I give a silent nod to my friend, assuring her I’ll be fine before following my cousin to the backyard.
“Angela, I’m so sorry.” I’m startled when she pulls me into her arms in that same bone-crushing hug so familiar to her. Only this time, her grip is even stronger than it was in the foyer. Not in a bad way. In a reconciliation kind of way. “I’m so incredibly sorry, okay? I didn’t realize how much I hurt you back then, but I should have.”
My eyes burn with an onslaught of tears I don’t expect. From the apology I never expected to receive from her.
“I mean it, okay?” she says once she pulls back slightly. “I know we don’t get to see each other as often as we used to, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you in my life. We’re family. We haven’t always stuck by each other in the ways we should have, but I don’t want you or Julian to feel like you have to avoid me because I won’t accept you for who you are.”
“It wasn’t just that.” I wipe at the tears tracking down my face. Briana notices the wetness on my cheeks, and her face falls. “I was never afraid you wouldn’t accept me. You stood up for Julian against his father. I still remember the way you laid into him.”
“I guess it’s that protective instinct that kicked in.” She laughs. “Motherhood changes you.”
“I’m sure it does.” I chuckle lightly. “I knew you’d accept me. I guess I was more worried you wouldn’t be able to understand me. Especially given that lie I told you and Esme after senior year, and everything I’ve said and done since.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation.” She waves a hand. “I’ve seen enough of your videos to get the idea.”
It’s a bit of a relief to hear that, but even still I want her to hear it from me , not the version of me I send to the internet, now that she’s given me the space where I feel safe to do so.
“I lied to get you and Esme off my back, and that’s the truth. I was never trying to trick you guys or willingly deceive you. But I won’t lie, it hurt that it took a lie like that to get you guys to finally treat me like a friend. When I started college, I made a vow to myself to start over. To never put myself in a situation like the one you and Esme put me in again. I only ever told one person the truth, and that was after I knew I could trust her without a doubt.”
“I’m sorry we made you feel like you weren’t good enough to be our friend.” Briana’s hand closes over mine. “And that you felt like you had to hide who you are because of it. God, I was an even bigger bitch than I realized, wasn’t I?”
“Looks to me like you’re growing out of most of it.” I smirk. “Once I came out to myself, I wanted to jump to the end, you know? All I want is to live my life the way I should’ve been this whole time. I knew how confusing that would be for the people I didn’t come out to, which is why I avoided you and Esme for so long.”
“Can you forgive me?” Briana squeezes my hand, eyes imploring.
“Of course I can forgive you,” I say, surprising myself by how easy that was.
For one cousin, at least.